The Perfect Lover Read online

  'Right now there's something far more important I need to do...far more important and far, far more pleasurable…'

  'Gareth...' Louise protested weakly, but it was too late. His mouth was already moving over hers and she was responding to him, her body melting against his as his mouth moved more determinedly over hers, his tongue tracing the shape of her lips and then gently probing them apart.

  'No,' Louise whispered, but the word was more a soft sigh of pleasure than any kind of real denial.

  It was the longest, sweetest, most loving, cherishing kiss she had ever known, Louise decided dreamily as Gareth continued to caress her lips, his hand cupping her face, stroking her skin, his heartbeat thudding fiercely beneath the hand she had originally lifted to fend him off and which had now stayed to curl possessively into the front of his shirt. She felt dizzy, light-headed almost, with a mixture of desire and disbelief, unable to comprehend properly that this was actually happening, that she was here in Gareth's arms, that he was holding her, kissing her, loving her, as though he actually meant it.

  'Have you any idea just how much I've been wanting to do this?' he was whispering against her mouth. 'How much I've ached to touch you...kiss you ...love you, Louise?'

  'I thought you despised me...disliked me,' she whispered back.

  'Despised myself, disliked myself, yes. But never you,' Gareth groaned. 'When I came to the villa that morning...the morning after and found that you'd all left...I thought at first that it was because...that I'd...that you'd been so affected by what had happened, that your parents... But then Maria told me that there was some problem at home.'

  'I was affected by what...what we did. But not in the way you mean,' Louise told him truthfully, shivering in delicious pleasure as his lips started to caress the soft curve of her throat.

  'I knew that I'd...enjoyed...what happened, and that you'd made me feel things...do things...I'd no idea I could feel or do. But it wasn't until the following Christmas that I realised what had happened to me. I'd told myself that I hated you, that I was glad you weren't my tutor any longer and that there was no contact between us. I even managed to persuade myself that I was still in love with Saul, that I had simply transferred what I felt for him into a physical response to you...'

  'Well, you certainly had me convinced,' Gareth interrupted her hoarsely. 'You called out his name when I...'

  'I didn't even know I had...it must have been a protective reflex,' Louise told him softly, achingly. 'A way of trying to pretend to myself that you weren't...that I wasn't...' She stopped, and her eyes widened in fierce response as he ran his fingertip around the neckline of her top and her breasts immediately started to ache wantonly for his touch.

  'Last time, when I went home, Saul and Tullah were both there. Everyone was tiptoeing around me as though I was an unexploded bomb. 1 admit I had been dreading seeing them myself, but when I did...' She looked up into his eyes. 'He was just Saul again,' she told him simply. 'Just my cousin. There was nothing else, and I couldn't really understand how I had ever thought... felt... wanted...

  'Ever since Tuscany I have been having these dreams about you... Dreams when I...we... I thought it was simply because you were the one who...' She paused, flushing, and then laughing as she shook her head. 'I was so naive...naive and stubborn. I didn't want to admit the truth to myself, but I looked at Saul and I ached for you so badly... wanted you so badly...'

  As her eyes filled with tears at the memory of the shocking fierceness of the pain, Gareth's eyes darkened in protective love.

  'I was thinking about you as well,' he assured her. 'Wondering what you were doing...and who you were with...wishing it was me and wishing to hell that I hadn't been stupid enough to give way to feelings that I knew then were dangerous...'

  'But you didn't love me when we...when you... You didn't love me. Not then,' Louise protested.

  Gareth looked steadily at her.

  'You're right. You were naive,' he told her huskily. 'Of course I damned well loved you. You don't think for a single solitary moment that I would actually have...that a man who didn't love...? You couldn't really have believed I could be so unprincipled as to...?'

  'I thought you did it because you were angry with me,' Louise told him simply. 'I thought it must be a male reaction thing.'

  '"A male reaction thing."' Gareth laughed huskily and closed his eyes. 'Oh, it was certainly that, all right,' he assured her. 'A very male reaction thing. The kind of male reaction thing that happens when a male, a man, falls deeply and passionately in love.

  'I could have killed you when you told me that you were planning to lose your virginity with Giovanni. Do you know that?' he asked her lovingly.

  'Well, you certainly made it plain that you didn't think it was a very good idea,' Louise agreed demurely. 'When did you fall in love with me...?'

  'It started one afternoon in my rooms. You were arguing passionately about something. I can't remember what. I looked at you and suddenly...' He paused and shook his head. 'It just happened. I told myself not to be a fool. I even reminded myself of all the reasons why it wouldn't work. And then you started skipping lectures, getting Katie to sit in for you instead…'

  'Katie said you knew about that.'

  'Of course I knew,' he told her lovingly, adding wryly, 'And so, too, did my body. It never reacted to Katie the way it did to you. And then, when I found out that you were in love with someone else...' He paused and shook his head. 'That day when I came to your room and found you there half-drunk...'

  'I felt so humiliated that you'd seen me like that,' Louise whispered. 'And then you turned up in Tuscany…'

  'I wasn't too pleased either. I'd gone there hoping to get things in perspective, to get my emotions under control, and instead...'

  'Why didn't you say something...tell me how you felt?' Louise asked him.

  'How could I when you'd already told me that the only man you could ever love was your precious Saul?'

  'I knew in Tuscany that it was just a silly crush that had burned itself out, but I'd made such a big drama out of it that I couldn't bring myself to let it go. And then you took me to bed and I realised that you were right...that I had just been a girl...but after our afternoon together I woke up a woman, and it was as a woman that I began to realise that I loved you,' Louise told him softly.

  'I couldn't repeat all the mistakes I'd made with Saul...I couldn't embarrass you and humiliate myself by putting you through all the stupid things I'd done to try and get Saul's attention—I didn't even want to. I could see just how ridiculous...how selfish and, yes, childish in many ways my behaviour had been. I knew then how different real adult love was from my teenage fantasy of what love was, which I had woven around my feelings for Saul.

  I'd believed that if I just tried hard enough I could make Saul love me. With you... With you I knew that the only way your love could be mine was if you gave it to me freely, and I knew you would never do that...'

  'You knew wrong, then, because you already had it,' Gareth whispered rawly to her. 'Oh, Lou, when I think of the time we've wasted, the days, the years, the nights we've spent apart when we could have been together.'

  'Especially the nights,' Louise agreed wickedly, her mouth curling up at the corners, but she still blushed a little bit as she saw the way he was looking at her.

  'It's been a long time,' he told her huskily. 'And there hasn't been anyone else for me since then, Louise...'

  'There hasn't been anyone else for me either,' Louise told him a little shyly, adding shakily, 'What you...what we did...the way I felt, was so...so good...so right...that I couldn't...I didn't... I was afraid of spoiling the memory of it, because I knew no one else could ever make me feel the way you had done.'

  'No one else?' Gareth quizzed her gently. 'Not even Jean Claude...?'

  Louise burst out laughing.

  'No one else,' she confided. 'And especially not Jean Claude...'

  'Gareth, what is it? What are you doing?' she demanded as h
e suddenly turned away from her and reached for the telephone, quickly pushing the buttons and wrapping his free arm around her to stop her from moving away from him as he started to speak into the receiver.

  'Paul, it's Gareth Simmonds here. Look, I'm not going to be around for the next few days—an urgent family matter... Yes... Well, the committee doesn't have another meeting until next month, I know... Can you check through my diary and cancel all my appointments for the next week, please? Oh, and by the way, can you ring the airport and book me two seats on the first available flight for Pisa? You can ring me back on this number,' he added quickly, giving Louise's telephone number and then replacing the receiver before she could say a word.

  'Tuscany,' she said, her eyes starting to shine.

  'Tuscany,' he agreed.

  'But Pam...'

  'No buts. Pam will be able to manage without you for a couple of days.' Gareth informed her masterfully, and then groaned as he added ruefully, 'I'm not quite sure how I'm going to manage to keep my hands off you until we reach the villa... You do realise, don't you, that it's a good two-hour drive from the airport and—?'

  'The villa... But it might not be empty, and you could—'

  'If it isn't empty then I shall bribe whoever is staying there to move out,' Gareth informed her determinedly. 'And besides...my family's villa is empty at the moment. It might not be quite the same—'

  'Your family's villa? With the pool...' Louise interrupted him. 'The pool where I saw you swimming that day the Fiat broke down...?'

  'Uh-huh...the very same one.'

  Louise closed her eyes and gave a small, femininely ecstatic sigh.

  'I want to go there,' she told him happily. 'Oh, yes,

  I want to go there, Gareth. I want it to be there... please...'

  'Of course... But why...?'

  A small smile curved her mouth as, leaning forward, she whispered to him, 'Because that's where I realised for the first time just what a very, very sexy man you are, and that's where, when I saw you getting out of the pool in those trunks, I couldn't help wondering just how you'd look without them, and that's where...'

  'Okay, I think I get your drift,' Gareth told her softly.

  'Well...?' Gareth asked Louise lazily, smiling sexily at her as he leaned over her sun lounger to kiss her awake.

  'Well, what?' she asked him, sitting up and taking the drink he had brought her.

  They had arrived at the villa in the early hours of the previous morning. Louise had wanted to go straight to bed, but Gareth had demurred.

  'Let's wait until this afternoon,' he had suggested meaningfully, and, her stomach knotting with sharp, sensual excitement, Louise had agreed.

  It...it...had been worth waiting for ...more than worth waiting for, and today her body still felt relaxed and softly heavy with sensual satisfaction.

  'Well, do I look just as good without my shorts as you hoped?' Gareth teased her.

  Louise laughed.

  Last night Gareth had persuaded her to go skinny- dipping with him, and afterwards they had made love beside the pool in a tangle of damp limbs and soft, warm towels.

  'Oh, every bit as good...' she confirmed. 'But you can always prove it to me again if you want to,' she teased him provocatively.

  'Oh, I want to,' Gareth assured her.

  'I hope everything is going to work out all right for Jack,' Louise murmured, her eyes darkening a little as she thought about her young cousin. 'I feel that we've all been guilty of not realising how much his father's disappearance has affected him.'

  'It must have been difficult for him,' Gareth agreed sombrely. 'But you handled the whole situation very well. You're going to be a very good mother, Lou...'

  'But not yet,' she told him. 'Or at least not until we're married...'

  'No, not until we're married. You'll make a lovely winter bride with your colouring...'

  'A winter wedding...' Louise murmured.

  'I have to warn you that I have at least a dozen nieces who will all want to be bridesmaids...'

  Louise giggled. 'Oh, not a dozen, surely!'

  'Well, four,' Gareth amended. 'You do want to marry me, don't you, Lou?' he asked her, his face and voice suddenly very serious.

  'Oh, yes,' Louise assured him huskily. 'Oh, yes, Gareth. Yes...yes...yes...' she moaned, as his mouth covered hers and the sun lounger rocked perilously beneath their combined weight.

  'Louise is going to marry Gareth Simmonds,' Joss informed his great-aunt Ruth solemnly as he sat in her drawing room eating the fresh scones she had just baked.

  'So I understand,' she agreed, smiling over his head at her American husband, Grant. They had only been married a few years themselves, even if their love went back over several decades.

  'I like him. He understands things...' Joss told them seriously. 'Maddy was crying again yesterday, when I went to see Gramps. Why does Max have to be so horrid to her?'

  Ruth sighed as she looked at him.

  'I'm afraid that Max is just like that, Joss,' she informed her great-nephew sadly. 'Some people are, and when they are I'm afraid it takes a miracle to change them.'

  'But miracles do happen,' Joss pointed out gravely. 'Look at you and Uncle Grant.'

  'They do, yes,' Ruth agreed.

  'I hope one does happen to Max...for Maddy's sake,' Joss added.

  Ruth looked at him calmly.

  'I shouldn't build your hopes on it, Joss,' she warned him. 'Not where Max is concerned.'

  'I still can't totally believe it,' Katie told her twin, shaking her head slightly. 'You and Gareth in love and getting married...'

  'What Mum finds harder to believe is that I'm going for the whole traditional wedding bit, complete with dress and bridesmaids,' Louise informed her sister wryly. 'We're getting married Christmas week, and spending Christmas Day at home with the family. Then New Year in Scotland, with Gareth's family, before we go off on honeymoon.'

  Katie was in Brussels with Louise, and Gareth had promised to take them both out for dinner.

  'You like his family, then?' Katie asked her twin.

  'Oh, yes,' Louise confirmed enthusiastically. 'A small part of me still can't quite believe it, either, Katie, I feel so...so special...so...so lucky... so...'

  'So loved?' Katie suggested gravely.

  Louise frowned. Was that a small shadow she could hear in her twin's voice, see in her eyes, and, if so, why?

  'Katie...' she began, but her sister was already getting to her feet and picking up their empty wine glasses.

  'It's six o'clock,' she warned Louise. 'We're going to have to start making a move if we're to be ready for Gareth when he calls for us at seven-thirty.'

  'You are going to be there, aren't you?' Louise demanded as she followed her into the kitchen. 'At the wedding, I mean... No last-minute trips to the back of beyond to inspect some irrigation scheme or anything...'

  'It's documents that I inspect, Lou, not irrigation schemes,' Katie reminded her lightly. 'And, yes, I shall be there.'

  She was glad that she had been alone when she had taken Louise's ecstatic telephone call to tell her that she and Gareth were going to be married. Louise had put her silence down to the fact that she had been so surprised by her news... Well, she had been surprised, but...

  Louise wasn't the only one who could love inappropriately and unwontedly. Not that Katie had ever imagined that Gareth might feel something for her, but then neither had she suspected that he was actually in love with her twin.

  Anyway, whatever foolish dreams she might once have had had been packed away quietly and for ever now, along with all the other things that belonged to her childhood and the past. And, yes, of course she would be at their wedding, and she would smile for them and with them. How could she not? How could she not be happy for her twin? And how could she not grieve a little for herself?

  'We'll never be alone, Katie,' Louise had once told her. 'We'll always have each other.'

  But Louise had been wrong and now she was alone. Al
one and lonely and hurting.

  'You know that Gareth actually knew right from the start when you attended his lectures in my place that you weren't me?' Louise burbled happily as Katie quietly washed her used glass. 'He could tell the difference between us because he loved me...'

  'Yes, you told me,' Katie acknowledged calmly, her hand trembling a little as she put the clean glass down.

  'I love him so much, Katie,' Louise told her sister softly. 'I just wish that you... I want you to be as happy as I am...I want you to have someone to love and be loved by.'

  'I'm happy as I am,' Katie told her, and promised herself that one day, very soon, it would be true.

  Table of Contents

  THE PERFECT LOVER

  The Crighton Family

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE